I actually originally created this addon several years ago, but since it's been almost three years since the last post in that thread and the thing has been extensively updated, I thought starting a new thread would be prudent.

Opening Disclaimer: While I would love to say that this addon is the result of having taken the past several years to perfectly test, polish, and fine-tune everything, it very much is not. I just kinda got the inspiration to work on it again. I likewise haven't been doing much of anything with lua since back then, so I remain a dabbler with the language relying extensively on copy-pasting and fiddling with existing stuff. As of now, I have done a fair amount of playtesting and revising, but I've also changed things as I've gone. All of which is to say, to the best of my knowledge the addon should be generally playable, but there are probably some bugs.

My ideal balance point for these classes is somewhere similar to but probably a fair bit below the arcane blade and temporal warden. As with the technical aspects, I've been working on the balance, but I wouldn't confidently call it dialed in yet. But that's at least the target I'd like to aim for.

And of course, any thoughts, critiques, ideas, suggestions, bug reports, whatever are welcome and appreciated!

--

So, with that all out of the way, this addon adds a new metaclass to the game, called the Mage Knight. The metaclass contains six classes: Phoenix Knight, Mind Knight, Storm Knight, Earth Knight, Sea Knight, and Mana Knight. All mage knights are skilled warriors capable of using pretty much any melee weapon with credit (although the different classes do have some slight synergistic preferences towards a certain style), and combining their physical attacks with supernatural powers. Their magic is powerful, but it doesn't come as easily to them as a full-fledged mage - they have to spend both mana (or psi, for mind knights) and stamina for most of their spells, reflecting the fact that it is physically draining for them to channel their powers.

Mage knight powers always avoid harming the caster and their allies, since they tend to get triggered randomly a lot. Their sustains usually have stamina and mana costs that scale at the same rate as the talent's effects, but are instant use and have no cooldown.

Universal Trees

All mage knights have access to the following existing talent trees. Mage knights are proficient warriors, and while they may use most any weapon, some choose to specialize in a certain fighting style.

Two-handed Assault (Class): Locked, 1.1 mastery.

Shield Offense (Class): Locked, 1.1 mastery.

Dual Techniques (Class): Locked, 1.1 mastery.

Combat Training (Generic): Unlocked, 1.1 mastery.

Foundation Trees

Each class has access to three other existing talent trees. Two of these are class trees centered around their energy type; a basic unlocked tree and an advanced locked tree, for mage knights who wish to specialize in their magical abilities. The third is a generic tree that relates to their style or powers.

Phoenix Knight

Fire (Class): Unlocked, 1.1 mastery.

Wildfire (Class): Locked, 1.0 mastery.

Chants (Generic): Unlocked, 1.2 mastery.

Mind Knight

Psychic Assault (Class): Unlocked, 1.1 mastery.

Nightmare (Class): Locked, 1.0 mastery.

Mentalism (Generic): Unlocked, 1.2 mastery.

Storm Knight

Air (Class): Unlocked, 1.1 mastery.

Storm (Class): Locked, 1.0 mastery.

Mobility (Generic): Unlocked, 1.2 mastery.

Earth Knight

Earth (Class): Unlocked, 1.1 mastery.

Stone (Class): Locked, 1.0 mastery.

Conditioning (Generic): Unlocked, 1.2 mastery.

Sea Knight

Water (Class): Unlocked, 1.1 mastery.

Ice (Class): Locked, 1.0 mastery.

Scoundrel (Generic): Unlocked, 1.2 mastery.

Mana Knight

Arcane (Class): Unlocked, 1.1 mastery.

Aether (Class): Locked, 1.0 mastery.

Survival (Generic): Unlocked, 1.2 mastery.

Mage Knight Trees

The following three custom trees are available to all mage knight classes.

Combat Casting (Generic): Unlocked, 1.0 mastery.

In many ways the tree that makes a mage knight, this tree covers all the basics of combining magical and physical combat. Talents in this tree can all be purchased immediately, they don't have to be taken in order.

Eldritch Combat: To a large degree, this talent functions like Arcane Combat; each time the mage knight attacks, it has a chance to trigger a spell. However, Eldritch Combat has a smaller chance to trigger, and can only trigger once per round in most cases. It has some boosts based on the weapon wielded, and it deals bonus damage on any hit that doesn't trigger a spell. Triggering a spell with Eldritch Combat quarters its cooldown (unless fixed cooldown) rather than negating it, and removes the stamina cost of the talent (other resource costs remain). The most important difference, though, is that Eldritch Combat can trigger a much wider selection of talents. Most of the activated talents of the various mage knight class trees can be triggered by Eldritch Combat, and it uses a prioritizing system to weight which talents trigger, while still determining them randomly.

When you learn Eldritch Combat you also get a talent called "anime style" that has your character shout out the name of any talent it triggers with Eldritch Combat while active. Because calling your attacks is fun. Also because it lets you see more easily what talents are triggering. But mostly that first one.

Eldritch Body: Mage knights aren't tied to any specific weapon; Eldritch Body serves as a universal mastery talent for melee weapons (it doesn't apply to ranged weapons). It also substitutes magic for Strength or Dexterity for damage and equip requirements. However, it keeps a portion of the original damage attribute, so mage knights who build for Strength or Dexterity (such as Phoenix Knights and Storm Knights) do have an edge in terms of pure melee ability.

Eldritch Body also offers a powerful damage reduction effect (generally ranging from 30-60%, capping at 66%). However, this effect is reduced the less damage is incoming, and the lower your current effective life. All damage mitigated is also returned as irresistible damage over the next five turns. In other words, it'll (usually) keep you from getting one-rounded and give you a chance to defend yourself in the face of sudden damage spikes, but it won't keep you from being worn down or taken out by enemies capable of persistent high damage.

Eldritch Surge: Provides a temporary boost to stats, applying to more stats as talent level increases. Can be triggered with Eldritch Combat. It also converts stamina to mana (or psi), which can greatly extend your ability to cast from eldritch combat if you're not pushing your stamina too hard.

Weapons Master (Generic): Unlocked, 1.3 mastery.

While mage knights can unlock one (or more) of the class weapon trees, they come with their own combat talents out of the box. These talents provide special attacks that work with any weapon.

Focused Strike: Lets you leap to a chosen location and attack an enemy there, with a bonus on the attack depending on weapon wielded. If this attack (including any procs off of it, though not any DoT effects it leaves behind) kills the enemy, its cooldown immediately resets. Always triggers a "bolt" talent when possible.

Sweeping Strike: Attacks all foes in front of you, and causes a status effect depending on the weapon wielded. Always triggers a "wave" talent when possible.

Whirlwind Strike: Attacks all foes around you, and gives a defensive effect that scales with targets hit depending on the weapon wielded. Always triggers a "burst" talent when possible.

Rapid Strike: Attacks the target twice, and provides some manner of recovery effect depending on the weapon wielded if both attacks hit. Always triggers a "blast" talent when possible.

Since mage knights are proficient with any melee weapon, some choose to specialize in a style that emphasizes diversity. The weapon supremacy tree allows a mage knight to rapidly swap weapons in the heat of combat to keep its foes off-guard.

Instant Draw: When you miss with an attack, gives you a chance to swap weapons and attack again with an accuracy bonus. At high levels the swap attack also negates other sources of miss chance.

Seamless Exchange: Swap weapons, removing disarm status, and take your Weapons Master talents off cooldown depending on talent level. This talent also allows Eldritch Combat to trigger talents that are currently cooling down.

Masterstroke: Chance to get a bonus attack depending on weapon wielded on any attack that hits but does not trigger Eldritch Combat.

Individual Class Trees

Each mage knight class has three class trees. The first is a tree of their main offensive talents - always a beam, cone, burst, and ranged blast of their primary energy type, which add a special effect at raw talent level 3. The second always contains four sustained talents that scale (in both power and resource cost) with their secondary stats, the first of which always provides some resistances (as well as a minor weakness). The third tree contains most of the class's activated specialized talents. These are always unlocked class trees with 1.3 mastery.

Worth noting, I'm not a huge fan of one-point wonders. If I've done my job right, pretty much all of these talents should scale and develop in such a way that they encourage filling the talent out.

Phonix Knight

The phoenix knight has the best offense of all the mage knights, and great recovery. However, it has limited mobility and poor utility.

Phoenix Fire:

Phoenix knights deal solar fire damage - their attacks will cause either fire or light damage, whichever will hit hardest (after taking into account the character's damage bonuses and penetration and the target's resistance and affinity). Solar fire attacks also illuminate all squares affected and can cause Wildfire with the right talents. This "best of two" form of attack helps keep them at the top of the heap when it comes to offense.

Phoenix Burn: Puts all Phoenix Fire talents on cooldown for an extremely powerful and destructive area attack. Further boosted if low on life.

Mind Knight

The mind knight has the best utility of all the mage knights, and great mobility. However, it has limited recovery and poor defense.

Psychic Attack:

Mind knights deal either physical (telekinetic) or mental (telepathic) damage. By default they alternate each time they use a Psychic Attack talent, but they get two sustains they can use to lock it to one if they want.

Psychic Combat: Every attack has a chance to either put a talent on cooldown (TK) or extend a talent's cooldown (TP).

Psychic Gifts:

Astral Jaunt: Short-range teleport, targeted at level 2, multi-use (but only 1/target) at level 3. Instant use if making a single teleport. At level 4, self-teleports can be targeted outside of LoS or range for random teleport, and at level 5 it becomes...well, "accurate" isn't the right word but at least "directional".

Astral Projection: Arcane Eye that adds mapping and sensing effects with levels. Lowers some cooldowns when triggered by Eldritch Combat. Can be used on a foe in line of sight to mind control at level 5.

Astral Blitz: Teleport among nearby foes attacking each one, possible multi-attacks with talent levels, and end in new location.

Astral Warp: Move a few terrain features.

Storm Knight

The storm knight has the best mobility of all the mage knights, and great offense. However, it has limited defense and poor recovery.

Storm Invocation:

Storm knights deal lightning damage primarily, allowing them to focus on a single damage type for solid offensive power, and some of their attacks are further boosted by some extra physical damage on top. These attacks can interact with Tempest talents.

Wind Stride: For a few turns, can move a certain number of times without spending time. At higher levels, can free you of pins, dazes, and slows.

Thunder Charge: Rush that comes with a stunning area thunderclap.

Cloud Leap: Melee attack on all foes in large area, which also allows you to reposition.

Lightning Ride: Long-range random teleport that can blind, surprise, and with levels, stun and damage in large radius at start and end points.

Earth Knight

The earth knight has the best defense of all the mage knights, and great utility. However, it has limited offense, and poor mobility.

Terrakinesis:

Earth knights deal half physical, half nature damage, and the physical portion is subject to armor. Between that and having to divide focus between two damage types, their offense is mediocre compared to other mage knights.

Tectonic Patience: Instant use but drains a full turn of energy, requires foes in sight; grants high resist all and new effect reduction, as well as modest refresh effects. Replaces the wait command. Basically, lets you pass a turn and get some benefits for it.

Sea Knight

The sea knight has the best recovery of all the mage knights, and great defense. However, it has limited utility, and poor offense.

Riptide:

Sea knights deal half nature, half cold damage, and their base magical damage is only one-tenth that of other mage knights! However, their attacks cause damage repeatedly over time, stack extremely well, have much lower cooldowns, and will provide various minor bits of recovery and defense for each foe affected as they level certain talents. So while they have absolutely the weakest offense in terms of alpha strike capability, they can wind up extremely deadly in a battle of attrition. It's just, against most foes, by the time they're starting to get some serious damage numbers, most other mage knights would have, you know, won already. But against foes with very tough defenses, a sea knight can eventually wear them down. These attacks all inflict Wet status on their targets. Their attack spells also have half the cooldowns and costs of other mage knights.

- When Embers of Rage is not present, you get a LUA error from the last line in the birth file- The mag>str substitution for equip requirements doesn't actually work. While the item tooltip is updated, the requirements are not. Prob missing something in object/combat/player as there's a few places you need to flag it.

Also, Mind Knights are a bit odd with how MAD they are compared to others. Perhaps add a talent that converts Wil>Mag in a class category or special case their damage conversion for Eldritch Body such as replacing Mag with Wil, or even adding a Psiblade-alike effect only for them. As it stands you can pick up Psiblades from Zigur which is probably their optimum build - Superpower/Arcane Might with Str/Mag/Wil would be incredibly powerful.And I'd be a bit careful with MK. If I'm reading this right, with Psychic Burst, Sweeping Strike and Seamless Exchange you can (presuming you bypass saves) inflict 100% talent failure on a target for 10 turns. If they're sleep vulnerable, you can then sleep them, wait for CDs and then get a few more turns.MK should also probably learn TK/TP Focus when they learn any talent in their main categories. If you start a character with auto-learn talents off, you can never learn these talents which is quite awkward.

Beginning thoughts:-Some new talent trees' descriptions aren't punctuated properly, some are. May want to double check these out.-I don't really see the need to pump Willpower as a suggested stat outside of Mind Knight? Mana is important with this class, but other stats seem to want to take priority. Unlike say, Phoenix Knight's Strength, there are also no talents that I can see that scale with Willpower investment outside of Mind.-At first I noticed just how similar some new talents are to the already existing spell tree, but it makes sense later with Eldritch Strength. There are still reasons to go through the vanilla trees if you wish when it comes to stuff like Thunderstorm.

- When Embers of Rage is not present, you get a LUA error from the last line in the birth file- The mag>str substitution for equip requirements doesn't actually work. While the item tooltip is updated, the requirements are not. Prob missing something in object/combat/player as there's a few places you need to flag it.

...Hah. Thanks, will fix.

Razakai wrote:

Also, Mind Knights are a bit odd with how MAD they are compared to others. Perhaps add a talent that converts Wil>Mag in a class category or special case their damage conversion for Eldritch Body such as replacing Mag with Wil, or even adding a Psiblade-alike effect only for them. As it stands you can pick up Psiblades from Zigur which is probably their optimum build - Superpower/Arcane Might with Str/Mag/Wil would be incredibly powerful.

Mind knights should be one of the least MAD. They use Willpower for their talents and resources, Magic for their special scaling talent and the general mage knight talents, and everything else is gravy. I suppose Cunning has a slight step up since it fuels mind power and mind save to a degree, but the bonuses from Eldritch Aura should be plenty sufficient to live without it if you'd rather focus on something else. Unless I'm underestimating the importance of other abilities for them, which is entirely possible.

Razakai wrote:

And I'd be a bit careful with MK. If I'm reading this right, with Psychic Burst, Sweeping Strike and Seamless Exchange you can (presuming you bypass saves) inflict 100% talent failure on a target for 10 turns. If they're sleep vulnerable, you can then sleep them, wait for CDs and then get a few more turns.

MK should also probably learn TK/TP Focus when they learn any talent in their main categories. If you start a character with auto-learn talents off, you can never learn these talents which is quite awkward.

Yeah at some point I'm probably going to go through and do an overhaul on stuff like formatting, making sure those little tactical bits in the talents are sensible, etc.

Chronosplit wrote:

-I don't really see the need to pump Willpower as a suggested stat outside of Mind Knight? Mana is important with this class, but other stats seem to want to take priority. Unlike say, Phoenix Knight's Strength, there are also no talents that I can see that scale with Willpower investment outside of Mind.

Resources are pretty important to them, and Willpower fuels both their resources. But considering the above, this probably means I'm underestimate the value of other stats. I expect at least part of this is from the partial damage boosts from Str and Dex being too high? The intent there is to make sure phoenix knights (especially) and storm knights don't get the value of their secondary stats curtailed (and to reinforce them as having the best offense). But if the benefit is such that even other mage knights are wanting one of those stats high, I need to tone the bonus down. Maybe I'll also reinforce Willpower by making it a factor for things like the Manasurge and Eldritch Aura resource recovery.

Chronosplit wrote:

-At first I noticed just how similar some new talents are to the already existing spell tree, but it makes sense later with Eldritch Strength. There are still reasons to go through the vanilla trees if you wish when it comes to stuff like Thunderstorm.

Yeah for the most part the existing trees are there primarily as extra customization options, although I tried to add synergy where I could. A mage knight who wants to emphasize the "mage" side might focus more on those trees, giving them spells they can cast without burning Stamina and such.

Razakai wrote:

There's definitely a bug in knight.lua, line 300ish. Can't quite replicate it yet, it happens when fighting other mageknight rares.

Heeeyy. Good to see this updated. Always did like the things (sorta' remind me of playing pre-nerf mindslayers, ehehe).

Tooltip desc wise, sea knight's drink deep could probably stand to have its reference to minimum life standardized with... whatever the base game's normal term for die_at is. Current phrasing's definitely more compact, but the first time my HP hit zero my current runthrough I was very confused when I didn't die, heh. Took me a couple looks over what talents I had until I noticed the amount was the same as on drink deep and it clicked that minimum meant die_at.

Curiosity wise... how does the handedness thing work with ogres, if at all? Still need to get to 5/5 grisly on this'un to start playing around, but it'd be nice to know in advance what happens (if anything, or at least if there's some kind of priority order) when you're dual wielding two handers or double staves or summat.

That said, might be interesting if getting grisly to 5/5 for an ogre knight opened up some kind of toggle so you could one-hand a two-hander; take the penalty in order to double dip the one one-hand and two-hander(/staff) effect on various junk, if you want to.

e: ... that, and I'm morbidly curious if you have some kind of check if the class runs into a race that happens to be able to one-hand 2h weapons and has more than two arms. Could you actually have some kind of mess that was triggering everything except the solo 1hand, at the same time? Maybe that, too, if it works off extra unarmed attacks ala flexible combat, too...

Heeeyy. Good to see this updated. Always did like the things (sorta' remind me of playing pre-nerf mindslayers, ehehe).

Frumple wrote:

Tooltip desc wise, sea knight's drink deep could probably stand to have its reference to minimum life standardized with... whatever the base game's normal term for die_at is. Current phrasing's definitely more compact, but the first time my HP hit zero my current runthrough I was very confused when I didn't die, heh. Took me a couple looks over what talents I had until I noticed the amount was the same as on drink deep and it clicked that minimum meant die_at.

Will do.

Frumple wrote:

Curiosity wise... how does the handedness thing work with ogres, if at all? Still need to get to 5/5 grisly on this'un to start playing around, but it'd be nice to know in advance what happens (if anything, or at least if there's some kind of priority order) when you're dual wielding two handers or double staves or summat.

That said, might be interesting if getting grisly to 5/5 for an ogre knight opened up some kind of toggle so you could one-hand a two-hander; take the penalty in order to double dip the one one-hand and two-hander(/staff) effect on various junk, if you want to.

e: ... that, and I'm morbidly curious if you have some kind of check if the class runs into a race that happens to be able to one-hand 2h weapons and has more than two arms. Could you actually have some kind of mess that was triggering everything except the solo 1hand, at the same time? Maybe that, too, if it works off extra unarmed attacks ala flexible combat, too...

I had at one point before I started reworking these guys in earnest had a phoenix knight with one of the two-handed steamsaws that was getting the two-handed, dual-wield, and shield effects, because I had them all in separate if statements rather than an elseif. That was kinda hilarious.

...That's fixed in this version.

For the most part, the priority is dual wielding -> two hander -> shield -> one handed (which is really just "none of the above"). I notice I had a different priority in the Eldritch Combat passive damage, so changing that to the above for consistency.

-Fixed infinite loop stuff for certain kinds of gemstone shields. I wish I knew how that little no_martyr tag works so I could do it properly but I think my method should still get the job done.-Fixed a typo causing beam attacks to not extend to full range when triggered by Eldritch Combat.-Fixed the error when EoR isn't present.-Magic requirement substitution now actually lets you equip the stuff rather than just telling you you can.-Expanded the magic requirement substitution to talents as well, after realizing that earth knights (well, everyone but phoenix knights, really, but most egregiously earth knights) would have trouble qualifying for things like Armor Training and Shield Offense.-Reduced the Str and Dex damage bonus from Eldritch Body from 20-60% to 10-35%.-Changed the resource regen from Eldritch Aura and Eldritch Surge to scale with Willpower rather than Magic.-Changed the Sweeping Strike condition for a two-handed weapon from Concussion to Disarm.-Added TK/TP Focus on_learn to the first talents of each Mind Knight class tree.-Clarified Drink Deep's die_at bonus.

I looked over the Eldritch Combat code for that line 300ish bug but nothing jumped out at me as potentially troublesome, so that'll have to wait until I see it for myself and can figure out the fix.

EDIT: ...And uploaded a second patch because I forgot something I wanted to do.

-Removed the physical power bonus from Eldritch Body, since Eldritch Aura already gives enough of one.

Idle thought, though. Possibly let manually activated block have a chance to trigger (non-weapon requiring?) eldritch combat if something hostile's in line of sight? Possibly with a greater chance to trigger, but lower/no effectiveness bonus and no bash.

Quick poke at earth knight very quickly had me thinking manually blocking ever was a poor idea, since attacking can do it anyway. Far from necessary, but it'd be nice to have a better reason to do something with block other than unbind it so you don't accidentally waste a turn by pressing the key :V

E: ... also, is it just me, or is sapphire shield hands down the best gem one? It's real hard to beat always up damage shield in attractiveness.

Yeah I don't know that blocking manually is really worth it. I want to keep overloading to a minimum, but I'll keep it in mind and see if I can implement something for it. If not, eh, they can just use their EC triggers.

I haven't done any thorough competitive testing for the gemstone shields, although I will note that the on break effects only happen when the shield is broken by damage, not just if duration expires, and the refresh isn't like sun paladin stuff - it doesn't keep the duration going. In theory, either sapphire should be broken through early, lowering the cooldown but you didn't get the full duration, or should outlast the attackers but not do any cooldown reduction. Eldritch Combat trigger will of course have a much shorter cooldown, but then you have the random factor in play so you may or may not get it when you need it.

'Course, that's all in theory. I'll keep an eye on it and lower the cooldown reduction if need be.

-I think I found that Eldritch Combat bug. Or at least I found a bug that was triggered by NPC mage knights around line 300 of knight.lua, so hopefully there was only one. It was checking talents for Eldritch Combat before checking if the talents could be used with Eldritch Combat. So that should be fixed.-Fixed an error causing Mana Bolt manaburn damage to be based on the talent's damage rather than the target's resources.-Earth Blast stone walls will now correctly block movement. Although this means I still don't know why Genius Loci burrowing doesn't work on them.-Added to Earthen Body something to make Stoneskin's cooldown reduction apply to Terrakinesis talents.-Gave mind knight telepathic damage a small chance to trigger the Night Terrors talent on a kill, even against non-sleeping targets (2-10%, scaling with Night Terror talent level, doubled if randomizing psychic damage so people don't feel obligated to leave telekinesis completely off).-Went back and clarified in the first talent descriptions the synergies the Mage Knight offensive trees have with their foundational "casting" trees where they hadn't been (Phoenix Fire lays down Wildfire, Psychic Attack can summon Night Terrors, Storm Invocation can Daze from Tempest, Terrakinesis gets cooled down by Stoneskin, Riptide applies Wet, and Mana Flare can be used in Aether Avatar).

EDIT: And a few more because playtesting is important apparently!

-Removed outdated mention of silence in Mana Bolt.-Fixed Eldritch Combat multiplying power by a boost (thereby gravely weakening the next trigger) rather than adding the boost.-Moved the spot where automatic Eldritch Combat is reset so an EC trigger of Fiddling with Chance doesn't immediately lose it.-Tightened up Foundations of Conveyance.-Fixed Eldritch Body setting weapons that already use magic to 0%.-Toned down Foundations of Aegis some.

Being unable to burrow through summoned walls is a known issue. I believe the Stoneshaper addon had a discussion about this which had a solution.Also, take a look at the Bastion addon for examples of altering talents and block effects if you wanted to update it. There's also some examples of updating individual talent descriptions without overloading, in case you wanted to do something like updating Wildfire's description directly to refer to PK talents, might look cleaner.

On a balance/design note - I think the T1 resist talents are a bit overtuned. Being able to easily get 100% resall in 1 or more resistances is very powerful. For example, consider how deadly Dark Crypt is. Now if you went there as a Mage Knight, you'd be basically immune to the majority of the threats. Or a Phoenix Knight being immune to fire wyrms, orc pyromancers, luminous horrors, everything in charred scar, a bunch of common and threatening class abilities like ritch summon etc.If you compare it to other resist talents like Nature's Defiance, that gives you 50% resist all in a fairly uncommon element, plus some other smaller bonuses. Or Juggernaut giving you 40% physical resistance and crit reduction, but being a temporary (albeit instant and high duration) buff.I think aiming for stuff more along the lines of Shield Wall, Relentless etc would be better. Drop the resistances a lot, and if necessary shift some of the power into secondary effects. Things like the Storm Knight's secondary effects are a good thing to aim for as they're strong immunities.

Also, Phoenix Wings should prob get some sort of scaling bonus, as currently it's just +range?

Six classes? Where am I going to find the time to give them all a proper go? Quite an ambitious project!

At first glance, from reading the class descriptions, I really like how each class has intentionally varried strengths in regard to offense, defense, restoration, utility and so on. Should make each one different enough that the use of the same mechanic doesn't get dull.

I started with Sea Knight and, while I haven't gotten too far yet, I'm having quite a lot of fun with it.

Anime Style is great, both for amusement factor and for calling your attention to talent procs.

I don't have much specific feed back at this point, but if anything jumps out at me, I'll let you know.

I was going to mention the wall-walking fix used by Stoneshaper, but Raz beat me to it :p The exact same callback should work for you, though, as I said to Erenion, it might not be the 'best' solution. Likely the same could be achieved by fiddling with something in the code where the check for passable terrain occurs when moved but, errr... I couldn't figure out where that was Using the callback does have the advantage of avoiding possible conflict with anything else that potentially messes with that bit of the engine, though.

On a balance/design note - I think the T1 resist talents are a bit overtuned. Being able to easily get 100% resall in 1 or more resistances is very powerful. For example, consider how deadly Dark Crypt is. Now if you went there as a Mage Knight, you'd be basically immune to the majority of the threats. Or a Phoenix Knight being immune to fire wyrms, orc pyromancers, luminous horrors, everything in charred scar, a bunch of common and threatening class abilities like ritch summon etc.If you compare it to other resist talents like Nature's Defiance, that gives you 50% resist all in a fairly uncommon element, plus some other smaller bonuses. Or Juggernaut giving you 40% physical resistance and crit reduction, but being a temporary (albeit instant and high duration) buff.I think aiming for stuff more along the lines of Shield Wall, Relentless etc would be better. Drop the resistances a lot, and if necessary shift some of the power into secondary effects. Things like the Storm Knight's secondary effects are a good thing to aim for as they're strong immunities.

I'unno... the full resistance things are very strong, but at least t'me they're also about as (meta) class defining as the class talent scheme and eldritch combat and whatnot are. It's something really unusual so far as overall talent design goes in the game, moreso than most other aspects of the class; most everything else has at least some resemblance to preexisting talents, but basically nothing gives you a sustained/effectively passive full resistance to anything damage wise.

What I'd probably recommend if you want to tone 'em down is to have some kind of detriment to getting hit with a (fully) resisted damage type. Maybe getting hit more than a few turns in a row causes things to go haywire and eldritch combat to randomly proc (reduced tlvl) offensive/class attack tree spells from other knight classes. Maybe weird things starts happening with the body talent itself; storm knights could ramp up a % chance per turn to randomly speed up/slow down nearby projectiles, your own included, ferex, earth knights start splitting off random walls (or maybe barricades/chasms ala the EoR bridge zone or last level of the ritch map) when hit.

Stuff like that, that builds upon the immunity rather than just diluting it. Reducing the values would obviously be easier and less involved both for developer and player, but...

E: Unrelated, it's hella' minor, but it might be nice if the +/- shield flyover text was (if possible) squelched when no enemies are in LoS when you have biokinesis. Kinda' weird/very mildly annoying to have it constantly spamming while you're moving around a level due to the passive shield thing.

Being unable to burrow through summoned walls is a known issue. I believe the Stoneshaper addon had a discussion about this which had a solution.Also, take a look at the Bastion addon for examples of altering talents and block effects if you wanted to update it. There's also some examples of updating individual talent descriptions without overloading, in case you wanted to do something like updating Wildfire's description directly to refer to PK talents, might look cleaner.

Ah cool, will check those out. Thanks!

Razakai wrote:

On a balance/design note - I think the T1 resist talents are a bit overtuned. Being able to easily get 100% resall in 1 or more resistances is very powerful. For example, consider how deadly Dark Crypt is. Now if you went there as a Mage Knight, you'd be basically immune to the majority of the threats. Or a Phoenix Knight being immune to fire wyrms, orc pyromancers, luminous horrors, everything in charred scar, a bunch of common and threatening class abilities like ritch summon etc.If you compare it to other resist talents like Nature's Defiance, that gives you 50% resist all in a fairly uncommon element, plus some other smaller bonuses. Or Juggernaut giving you 40% physical resistance and crit reduction, but being a temporary (albeit instant and high duration) buff.I think aiming for stuff more along the lines of Shield Wall, Relentless etc would be better. Drop the resistances a lot, and if necessary shift some of the power into secondary effects. Things like the Storm Knight's secondary effects are a good thing to aim for as they're strong immunities.

Frumple wrote:

I'unno... the full resistance things are very strong, but at least t'me they're also about as (meta) class defining as the class talent scheme and eldritch combat and whatnot are. It's something really unusual so far as overall talent design goes in the game, moreso than most other aspects of the class; most everything else has at least some resemblance to preexisting talents, but basically nothing gives you a sustained/effectively passive full resistance to anything damage wise.

What I'd probably recommend if you want to tone 'em down is to have some kind of detriment to getting hit with a (fully) resisted damage type. Maybe getting hit more than a few turns in a row causes things to go haywire and eldritch combat to randomly proc (reduced tlvl) offensive/class attack tree spells from other knight classes. Maybe weird things starts happening with the body talent itself; storm knights could ramp up a % chance per turn to randomly speed up/slow down nearby projectiles, your own included, ferex, earth knights start splitting off random walls (or maybe barricades/chasms ala the EoR bridge zone or last level of the ritch map) when hit.

Stuff like that, that builds upon the immunity rather than just diluting it. Reducing the values would obviously be easier and less involved both for developer and player, but...

Hmm...I do like the immunities thematically, though I also see the point about how it can trivialize certain enemies. I recall in an older version I had phoenix knights taking a weakness to cold and darkness damage, could possibly institute something like that again. Make it a lesser but still noticeable weakness (like -6% per talent level, and -4% per level to the cap). Phoenix knights to cold (maybe also darkness since fire is pretty common and they get full immunity to blind, which is a serious status effect), mind knights to arcane, storm knights to physical (but a lower penalty since physical is super-common), sea knights to blight, earth knights to acid (also probably a lower penalty since they don't get a full damage immunity out of the box and, like, c'mon, they're earth knights), mana knights to nature. So while you can become nigh-invulnerable to certain classes of enemies, by doing so you're also opening yourself up to more damage from certain types.

Problem with that is that it kinda further exacerbates the issue of the class power varying based on where you are and who you're fighting. I could lower the immunities but keep the caps so the talents themselves don't grant full immunity out of the box, but do make it possible to achieve such with additional investment. I'll mull on it some.

Razakai wrote:

Also, Phoenix Wings should prob get some sort of scaling bonus, as currently it's just +range?

Come to think of it, I believe I had set that up before I had done EC boosting stuff for the mana knight. Could change the guaranteed EC trigger there to a scaling boost to the chance. Actually weakens the talent some, but makes levels more important, which is probably good.

nsrr wrote:

Six classes? Where am I going to find the time to give them all a proper go? Quite an ambitious project!

At first glance, from reading the class descriptions, I really like how each class has intentionally varried strengths in regard to offense, defense, restoration, utility and so on. Should make each one different enough that the use of the same mechanic doesn't get dull.

I started with Sea Knight and, while I haven't gotten too far yet, I'm having quite a lot of fun with it.

Anime Style is great, both for amusement factor and for calling your attention to talent procs.

I don't have much specific feed back at this point, but if anything jumps out at me, I'll let you know.

I was going to mention the wall-walking fix used by Stoneshaper, but Raz beat me to it :p The exact same callback should work for you, though, as I said to Erenion, it might not be the 'best' solution. Likely the same could be achieved by fiddling with something in the code where the check for passable terrain occurs when moved but, errr... I couldn't figure out where that was Using the callback does have the advantage of avoiding possible conflict with anything else that potentially messes with that bit of the engine, though.

Frumple wrote:

E: Unrelated, it's hella' minor, but it might be nice if the +/- shield flyover text was (if possible) squelched when no enemies are in LoS when you have biokinesis. Kinda' weird/very mildly annoying to have it constantly spamming while you're moving around a level due to the passive shield thing.

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